sure. wait. what?

Money

The first thing I did in April was “pay myself”, so to speak. I met my monthly savings goals as usual, but I had to shuffle some money around because I also made a Big Ass Purchase.

Savings Bucket	Savings Goals Met %
Long-Term	100%
Travel	100%
Gifts	100%

Because of the Big Ass Purchase, I might have to adjust my savings goals for the rest of the year. I dunno yet. We’ll see.

Investments-wise, I didn’t add anything to my portfolio in April. I had a target amount that I already met in March, but I’m considering investing consistently, even if it’s as low as 100 CAD every month.

Fitness

In March, I felt like I’d fallen short of my fitness goals even though I technically exceeded my minimum number of workout days. In April, I felt like I did great, even though I didn’t quite reach my 15-day target.

Exercise Days	12
Walk	4
Run	2
Tennis	2
Barre	2
Lift	1
Yoga	1

See, my body sorta conked out in April. I started the month sick and I ended up having a wisdom tooth taken out. I had no business pushing my body any further, but I still managed to fit in a few workouts whenever I felt up to it. I’d call that a win.

Reading

I finally finished reading Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection. Man, what a book. It reminded me of the viral short story “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian, except Rejection’s stories were all written from the perspective of the rejectees, the casualties of rejection.

The first story “The Feminist” was the most polarizing, in my opinion. What stuck with me the most though was the rather specific insecurity the protagonist has about his body. A few men I know with the same, uh, feature (??), came to mind, and I wonder if they too feel insecure about it.

Anyway, this book shook my brain for a good couple days. It definitely provokes something out of the reader, so don’t read it if you’re looking to relax or “feel good.” But if you’re down to get disturbed, dude, by all means…

Social

I met up with some former coworkers for lunch, and it was genuinely nice to see everyone doing well, thriving in their careers and tackling “old people things” like marriage and homeownership.

It was also L’s birthday in April, and we celebrated over hotpot.

And of course I made the ice cream party happen in April. Woohoo!

I handed each of my friends a Creami tub and asked them to create whatever flavour they wanted. They froze their creations for at least 24 hours, and we met up the following night to turn our creations into ice cream.

During tasting, we tried to guess each flavour. The hardest to guess were earl grey and cheesecake. The cheesecake ice cream actually tasted like mango float without the mango, which reminded me of Kween Yasmin lol.

We also did oracle card readings, which was like tarot readings but not really.

Finds and Firsts

Playing tennis in a real tennis court was a first. The Creami party was also a first, but another noteworthy find from that night was Tajin, a Mexican spice mix that we sprinkled on top of the mango ice cream. So good!

Oh, and I also voted in April. I wouldn’t say that I voted “wisely”, but I voted based on the values and the principles I believe in. I didn’t get my free ice cream though, but it’s cool.

(People who vote get free ice cream from two of the most popular ice cream stores in the city. Share lang.)

Fails and Flops

I dunno yet if this is a fail, but when I had my wisdom tooth taken out, I was extremely careful not to get the surgical site infected. I ate soft food, I did saltwater rinses (I still do), and I didn’t gargle or spit aggressively during the first couple days. It’s been a week now, but my mouth still feels swollen. I also feel a tender bump on my gums, so maybe it got infected? Ugh.

I also failed to record more audio logs in April. I recorded a couple “episodes”, but I didn’t edit them until the following day. The thing is, when you listen to a recording with quote-unquote fresh ears, you tend to hear all the flaws. I ended up not posting the logs because I concluded that they weren’t something I would personally want to listen to. I still want to continue recording audio logs though. We’ll see.

Other than those minor “flops”, April went generally well.

Looking Ahead

I’ll try to be more specific with my intentions for May.

• I want to limit my credit card expenses to under 1000 CAD.
• I want to draw at least three new images using Procreate on my iPad.
• I want to run a 5k.

And these are all on top of my regular monthly goals that I have been tracking in these monthly logs. Pretty doable, eh?

Hope y’all have a great May!